The present invention relates to rice cookers and, more particularly, to an automatic rice cooker for washing, cooking and keeping warm selected quantities of rice.
Conventional rice cookers such as disclosed, for example, in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication 58-105724, and Japanese Examined Patent Publication 1-16168, automatically weigh, wash and cook rice. However, these prior-art devices do not provide automatic modes for cooking rice that is washed elsewhere, or for keeping warm rice that is washed and cooked elsewhere.
In addition, the above prior-art rice cookers permit premature withdrawal of a rice cooking pot at times that may damage the pot or the remainder of the rice.
Also, the prior-art devices fail to provide for a checkout and setup routine which checks for the existence of conditions required for the beginning or continuation of operation.